Category Archives: playwriting

My new standard for when a play is working

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I’m going crazy over the amount of texting going on in the theatre these days. Do people not imagine it’s driving those around them crazy?

I saw a very bad production of Jon Jory’s not very inventive adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” in Orlando back in February. (more on this tomorrow)  People were taking phone calls, texting, even some joker on the far side of the theatre was sending messages, the light of his phone was brighter than the stage lights.

I even chewed out one young theatre goer in Silver Spring at a matinee last month.  I’m becoming the crabby old lady I always accused my mother of being.

But then I realized the only time people were taking out their phones was when the play dragged. Nothing interesting was happening onstage. They were bored. And frankly, so was I.

I tested this theory at a few plays that really worked. No one reached for a cellphone. Not a single text.  

So here’s my new standard of finding out when a play is working well: when nobody even thinks about taking out their phone. They are too enthralled in the action of the play. They care about the characters. They want to know what happens next.

THAT’s the kind of play I want to write!

Writing Men

playwriting

Okay, I’ll just come out and say it. I love writing men.

Phew! Glad I got that off my chest.

That other gender fascinates me, amuses me, and delights me endlessly.

I used to kill off my male characters a lot. I’m not sure if this was some unconscious hostility or just a love for good tragedy. Now, I don’t kill the men so much. In fact, I’ve even had a male protagonist a few times. I guess I’m evolving as a playwright.

How do I approach male characters? Is there a trick? There is, but I’m not giving away all of my playwriting secrets.

At the end of the day, male characters are just characters with hopes and dreams and wants and needs.

Playing with Time

Audience, playwriting

 As playwrights, we (I’m assuming a collective we because playwrights are probably the only readers of a blog about women’s playwriting) are shapers of time.

By time, I’m not talking about THE TIMES. Instead, I’m talking about the time that an audience is sitting on their backsides and watching a play. It’s the magic hour between dinner and late night cocktails or perhaps between cocktails and late night dinner.

Like sculptors, we have different knives to cut through time. We could show some nifty characters, maybe put them in conflict with each other. We could show flash and sparkle. Or we could show nothing at all but turn it into something magical. We could have dancing and singing. We could have kissing—people seem to like the kissing parts.

Whatever we decide to do, the audience is sitting there. Sometimes they’re eating snacks. Sometimes they’re drinking water out of plastic bottles. Sometimes they’re sleeping. Maybe they had some wine in the lobby before a performance. 

Maybe some are secretly texting their lovers. Maybe some are getting live updates of a championship game they are missing in order to see the play they were dragged to. Maybe some are making a mental to-do list for the next day.

Maybe, just maybe, some get sucked into the play in spite of their best intentions to remain aloof and cynical about the proceedings. After all, it’s just actors pretending on a stage. Or is it?

What is the play’s relationship to the audience? How can the playwright slow down time? Speed up time?

 Why do people spend their time watching plays? It’s something to do, I suppose.

Props!

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My next play will have no props! No props except for a few cans of beer!

I resolved internally at some point between making a typewriter out of a priority mail box and drinking some really cheap German sparkling wine so we could use the bottles.

This was all for a recent staged reading of my play, Let’s Go, at the Blank, and I was working with actors who were so good that I wanted to give them everything they needed. They were so good that they made me look good. They were so good that they should all be rich and famous

The play itself had a lot of props. There were cups of tea, bottles of booze, papers, cigarettes, and general clutter. Sure it could all have been mimed, but once you bring in one thing, you suddenly want another thing and another thing. Before you know it, you’re making a phonograph out of a cardboard box.

Now that I’ve gone to one Prop extreme, I think it’s time to go to the other. Cans of beer. Yes, that will work. I won’t even have to empty them. The script specifically states that they get cracked onstage.  

And who are these actors who should be rich and famous because they are so good? They are: Alena Von Stroheim, Joanna Kelly, Matt Crabtree, Tad Shafer, Karen Jean Olds, and Emilia Vitti.

I give them all props in all definitions of the word.

If Nobody Sings Along…

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Chrisette Michele, a phenomenal singer/songwriter, has a new album out titled LET FREEDOM REIGN and on the album there is a song called “If Nobody Sang Along.” In this song, she discusses having an audience to appreciate her work and wondering if the absence of that audience would affect her desire to tell her story… She resolves that when everything is said and done, it’s about the possibility of affecting someone’s world simply because she told her story that drives her to sing regardless…

As a playwright, the answer has to be ‘yes’, as well, otherwise, we would hardly get anything done.   What determines art – productions, readings or simply creating it?  How much stuff going wrong stops or trips you up?  For most of us, we write because we must and the obstacles work their way into and through our stories.  We answer those questions again and again as we endure…  We stand and fight for ourselves as we press through those moments of weakness.  Exhaustion wrapped ‘round our shoulders, we sit once more at the computer or pad and pen and write — something, anything, as long as it is story…

Years ago, at a church that I attended in the Midwest, the young ministers were given time on Sundays to preach from 3 – 5 pm (in the basement of the church).  Service attendance at that time of the day was usually slack; it was in the middle of the day when everyone was at home relaxing before returning for the 7 pm evening service or if they did return to the church early, they would be upstairs talking to other church members.  Most of the time the young ministers would cancel their service because no one showed up or if there were less than 5 people. There was one minister, a Minister Tom Carey, however, who would start preaching to an empty room.  He would preach as if the room was full, as if there was no tomorrow.  And, this brother who stuttered sometimes would preach stutter free.  You could hear him from the stairwell; it would draw you right down those stairs and into a seat.  We asked him why he would preach to an empty room and he would say, “God’s here.  I had something to say.” or “The Word is good all the time, even in a room with no people.”  (I paraphrase from memory.)  After a while, his services would be packed; his gift had made room for him even when nobody was singing along… 

I think about Minister Carey when I am up in the wee hours of the morning typing away at a story knowing my gift is making room for me, knowing God’s here and I have something to say, knowing that even in an empty room, my story is relevant and that I will always sing regardless of whether or not anyone sings along…

The Deliberate…

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It’s time to write but the internal mulling over process is growing branches – more like veins – and they’re burrowing…going places I did not expect.  I have been reading a lot of poetry lately – writing more of it than I have in years.  I have entered my sacred circle, searching for stories never expecting to find them in poetry but there they are – visible more to my ear than my eye, writing an old thing a new way.  I found a new poet, too.  Nikky Finney – who is not new but somehow she was hidden from me all these years.  Perhaps, I wasn’t ready for her; she’s intense.  Her poems help me understand the ache in my own poetry to be more than…  They’re like short stories – her poetry.  Raw, refined and full of truth – her poetry is a lesson in the deliberate…   Deliberate as in:  Intentional, on purpose, premeditated, calculated, planned, and not accidental.  Every writer should have/develop the ability to deliberately tell their stories, their way – to flip the switch that turns off all outside interference and just say it…

I am noticing a greater freedom in my poetry lately.  Now that I am focusing on it; it seems to have evolved into another form of storytelling.  It even almosts writes like a play.  In the past, I have written monologues in poetry but I never thought much about the connection to a freedom I haven’t had in my plays.  Not that I am not free already but in poetry, one can be sparse and direct and move on to the next thought.  This is the first time my poetry has become part of my circle where I thought of it as story first.  Putting together a manuscript recently, I found myself looking at the context of the whole, the arch, the subtext of the whole, the imagery, the story…   And, now, I can hear pieces and parts of poetry whispering to me from the shadows; on the verge of the light of day yet always just able to crawl back into their hiding places – too many to catch.  They want me to sit with them by the fire and listen as they slowly tell me – everything…they promise to tell me everything…  But, I have been so busy lately; there has been no time to linger in my sacred circle longer than a moment. Especially, since I was expecting characters from a play to speak and not fragments of poetry. 

Maybe the poetry will end up being a play…  At any rate, if I deliberately go with the flow and write whatever wants to be written now; I am sure it will enhance every area of my writing life.   May be the break will bring me back to the characters more refreshed and ready to rock and roll.  As long as I can meet my deadlines…

Writing Things Delightful

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Don’t say it was delightful; make us say “Delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please, will you do the job for me?“ – C.S. Lewis

I am in love with this quote.  As a writer of often fantastical worlds, I am constantly striving to paint my script descriptively enough while still allowing plenty of play room for my imagined designers and directors… And yet, I’ve often tried to steer clear of using these “adjectives” of awe, for Lewis’s exact reason; I mean, what kind of author would I be were I to limit my own imagination with oft-used phrases like such, rather than diving deeper into the “meat” of such a statement?

For what is more exciting :  She wanders into a scary woods. OR  She wanders into a forest, black with night and alive with a chorus of things that go bump in the night.

I mean, it’s a slap-dash example, but you get my point.

I’m working with a bunch of youngsters right now who have written plays (some of them their first) as entrants in our inaugural Young Playwrights Festival.  It’s thrilling and frightening, and exhilaratingly difficult – the people wrangling, the ego tending, and the director guiding…  Because as a playwright and a less-than-a-handful-under-her-belt director, I’ve not yet had the privilege of coordinating anything quite of this scale.  Yet, here I am, at the center of things, and I find that the switching of shoes (from hungry playwright, to playwright wrangler) I’m going to bat for these kids like a proud mama bear!

And I’m jonesing to take them all under my wings and whisper C.S. Lewis quotes to their novice ears and help them unlock the magic of playwriting so that next year their plays are even more exciting, more daring… more delightful.

But until my class opens in the Spring, I’m simply going to go on collecting these lovely little bits of commentary from the “Greats” – collect them, hold them close to my heart, and sigh at the glow they carry within.

And I’m going to try not to go crazy as we enter the final two weeks before the festival itself goes up… in all her new-born glory!

Over-Extended and Under-Funded: an Exercise in Remembering to BREATHE

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Breathing… Breathing…

I have to remember to breathe.

I’m producing a Young Playwrights Festival, and although I’ve headed up smaller such things before, all the people (and kiddo) wrangling has got me feeling a tad overwhelmed.  I mean, this is quite a bit different than wrangling characters and inventing location… this is tangible, frustratingly human, manuevering…

And it’s got me cringing at all the variables.

Which is why I need to remember to breathe… that it’s all going to be just fine…  That ultimately, all the worrying and fretting don’t actually do anything except make you miserable.

But I am sitting here, wondering how in the world I got myself so mightily committed overall – I mean, I’m earning a 19-hour a week paycheck at my “job” and probably logging an additional 25 a week for non-paying endeavors:  There’s the Festival (Gah!) and rehearsals for the show I’m directing, and the countless emails from the other directors and committee members and… woof!  Then there are my blogs – I have a personal space that allows me to pontificate periodically on anything from cat-hairs in my breakfast to the agony and love-lust of art – plus I edit a larger scale Los Angeles-centric blog-collective with a bunch of other writers (Ahem, and might I say, we’re always looking for more people to blog for us, my fellow scribes!)  And then I have my playwriting log – which consists of an ever increasing list of characters and plot-lines banging down my mental door, demanding to be paid attention to…

No wonder I’m tired!

So I’m sitting here, in the midst of things, wondering just when the heck I’m going to be able to pay Visa back (and Mastercard, and Discover…) from all my below-the-poverty line living, and actually manage to eek out some sort of existence that doesn’t land me gasping for air and sanity every Friday night as I clutch my empty wallet in shame over my under-funded dinner…

Woe. Is. The. Playwright.

And yet…

I can’t fathom having a laundry list of over-compensated-for tasks that looks like an accountant’s sheet… I can’t imagine finding happiness in a full-time paycheck if it was sans-flexibility for these things that alternately drive me crazy and flood me with joy… I NEED to be able to flit from project to project; writing, directing, producing, editing… I NEED THE UNCERTAINTY!   I just want to get paid better for it 😉

So… as I sit down at my desk and hammer out a few fumbling sentences here, I’d just like to tell the universe that I’m not complaining – not really.   I am so thankful for my life – I’d just like my life to start paying for itself so that I can afford the massages I need to soothe the worries my over-committments manifest and to move out of my parents house and into some big-girl living once again.

But until that happens, I guess I just have to continue to remind myself to B-R-E-A-T-H-E.

My Funny Little Valentine…

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What a week I have ahead of me… (actually, what a few weeks!)  I’m coordinating a play festival for young playwrights and directing one of the winning plays, as well as in the final three weeks of our Spring I session at NAU-Yavapai in which I’m teaching a class on “How to be a Master Student”…  My head is, as one says, spinning.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today, no, today I want to talk about my funny little Valentine…

Ooooooh, my sexy little MacBook Pro, where would I be without you?  Your shiny faux-metallic keys that spin a musical clackity-clack to tease even the most stubborn of ideas from hiding…  Your bright friendly screen reflecting a happy glow against even the most unpleasant of hours…  Your ability to “force close” programs at the drop of a cranky-ass-hat…  I can’t imagine, no, don’t WANT to imagine, where I would be without you!

When I think of all that we’ve accomplished together… The laughter and tears, the smiles and frustration, the agony of edits paired with the sweet joy of “BLACK OUT” pridefully blinking from the page –  Pages upon pages of jokes, banter, punches, flying props (and sometimes people) – I rejoice, I cheer, and I pray that you never, ever, ever, crash (like you did that one time) Because… sweet MacBook Pro… I think, I think I love you.

~Tiffany

Now What?

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You know that idea, the one that rolls around in your head whenever you don’t want to concentrate on the project you actually should be writing?

Then one day someone gives you time and resources and says that idea sounds great for a workshop. At least, that’s how it happened for me.

Now what?

Nothing is written, perhaps some notes jotted, an image folder created on my desktop but still sparse: this is the state of that project.

I start by collecting source material, images, and just seeking as much research on the topic at hand as possible.

How do you start a dream project?